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Printing

Pcb now has support for device drivers, PostScript, encapsulated PostScript, and Gerber RS-274-X drivers are available so far. The Gerber RS-274-X driver additionally generates a numerical control (NC) drill file for automated drilling, a bill of materials file to assist in materials procurement and inventory control, and a centroid (X-Y) file which includes the centroid data needed by automatic assembly (pick and place) machines. I recommend the use of GhostScript if you don't have a PostScript printer for handling the PostScript output. Printing always generates a complete set of files for a specified driver. See the page about the Print() action for additional information about the filenames. The control panel offers a number of options. Most of them are not available for Gerber output because it wouldn't make sense, for example, to scale the gerber output (you'd get an incorrectly made board!) The options are:

device
The top menu button selects from the available device drivers.
rotate
Rotate layout 90 degrees counter-clockwise before printing (default).
mirror
Mirror layout before printing. Use this option depending on your production line.
color
Created colored output. All colors will be converted to black if this option is inactive.
outline
Add a board outline to the output file. The size is determined by the maximum board size changeable from the sizes menu. The outline appears on the top and bottom sides of the board, but not on the internal layers. An outline can be useful for determining where to shear the board from the panel, but be aware that it creates a copper line. Thus it has the potential to cause short circuits if you don't leave enough room from your wiring to the board edge. Use a viewer to see what the output outline looks like if you want to know what it looks like.
alignment
Additional alignment targets are added to the output. The distances between the board outline is set by the resource alignmentDistance. Alignment targets should only be used if you know for certain that YOU WILL BE USING THEM YOURSELF. It is extremely unlikely that you will want to have alignment targets if you send gerber files to a commercial pcb manufacture to be made.
scaling
It's quite useful to enlarge your printout for checking the layout. Use the scrollbar to adjust the scaling factor to your needs.
media
Select the size of the output media from this menu. The user defined size may be set by the resource media either from one of the well known paper sizes or by a X11 geometry specification. This entry is only available if you use X11R5 or later. For earlier releases the user defined size or, if not available, A4 is used. Well known size are:
          	A3
          	A4
          	A5
          	letter
          	tabloid
          	ledger
          	legal
          	executive
          

offset
Adjust the offsets of the printout by using the panner at the right side of the dialog box. This entry is only available if you use X11R5 or later. A zero offset is used for earlier releases.
8.3 filenames
Select this button to generate DOS compatible filenames for the output files. The command input area will disappear if selected.
commandline
Use this line to enter a command (starts with |) or a filename. A %f is replaced by the current filename. The default is set by the resource printCommand.

The created file includes some labels which are guaranteed to stay unchanged

PCBMIN
identifies the lowest x and y coordinates in mil.
PCBMAX
identifies the highest x and y coordinates in mil.
PCBOFFSET
is set to the x and y offset in mil.
PCBSCALE
is a floating point value which identifies the scaling factor.
PCBSTARTDATA
PCBENDDATA
all layout data is included between these two marks. You may use them with an awk script to produce several printouts on one piece of paper by duplicating the code and putting some translate commands in front. Note, the normal PostScript units are 1/72 inch.